Twenty Facts About Teresa Lisbon
by deeleigh
Summary: Twenty things about our favourite CBI agent. Slight spoilers for the whole series, but nothing too major. Hints of Jisbon. **Twenty facts about Patrick Jane added.
1. Teresa Lisbon

** This idea was actually from a fix I read in a different fandom almost two years ago, although I can't seem to be able to find it for the life of me. Also, I do not own the Mentalist or anything associated with it.**

Twenty Facts about Teresa Lisbon

**One:** Lisbon didn't learn how to drive until she was 18. She had hated cars since her mom died. No one really blamed her, but eventually it simply became an inconvenience. James wanted to play hockey, and then Tommy wanted to learn how to drive. And, well, someone had to teach him.

**Two:** She took an alternative public speaking course in college. Which really meant that she took a drama course.

She was never really a fan of the dramatic arts, per se, but she needed another elective. Public speaking is useful.

But really, there was this guy who came into the coffees shop she was working at, and he loved drama, and she figured that it wouldn't hurt-having something to talk to him about.

**Three:** Lisbon knows how to cook five things with incredible talent, and another five things with not-so-much talent.

She can make a home-made pasta sauce that really is _to die for. _ She and her best friend from high school came up with the recipe in the tenth grade, and mastered it by the twelfth. They email back and forth, sometimes, if they ever add anything new.

She can bake peanut butter cookies. She likes to add a single chocolate chip to each.

She eats a slice of toast every morning, with melted butter and a brown sugar-cinnamon mix on top. Something her mom used to do, when she would get home from day shift at the hospital. She would opt for the toast instead of the leftovers. The convenience and indulgence found in such an easy thing…it never escaped Lisbon, really.

She loves her chinese food. When she was in the Academy, there was a guy on her training squad who also loved chinese. He taught her how to make this stir-fry and, despite all the mess she got into because of him, she just couldn't help herself. She couldn't throw away the recipe.

She can also make a wicked batch of scalped potatoes; a family tradition that, unlike everything else, didn't die out.

She can also kind of make homemade burgers, lasagna, chicken noodle soup from scratch and blueberry scones.

She has also recently taken to melting cheese onto bagels in the oven, and she counts that as cooking.

**Four:** The first time she met Jane, he was incredibly polite to her. Charming, almost. She knew about his family, she had read the Red John file. So the first time she met him, she knew. Right away, she knew, that everything for him was a charade.

It was probably the only time she has ever had the upper hand in their relationship.

**Five:** Not that she would ever admit it, but she did keep a diary until she was 15.

**Six: **She had called James 16 times in the first ten minutes. If everything was fine, she was going to look like a total idiot. If everything wasn't fine… well, she wasn't quite ready to think about that.

By the first half hour, she had called him closer to 100 times.

On the forty-second minute after the plane hit the first tower, her phone rang.

"Reese," James coughed. "Reese, I'm okay."

That was the most she had ever cried.

**Seven: **She lost her virginity to Samuel Harris, who was the first boy at college to talk to her, let alone ask her to go _for coffee_. He was a nice kid, had these dorky glasses and floppy hair.

So when she meets Sam Bosco, well.. She's always had a soft spot for name.

**Eight: **She hates going into the bank. When she was hired by the CBI, she was all too happy to sign up for direct deposit. Her general dislike for the establishment could easily have everything to do with the fact that they have long lines and are generally noisy. Or because she has seen that episode of the X-Files where Mulder keeps getting blown up in the bank.

Either or.

**Nine: **Up until the ninth grade, Teresa had always wanted to be a doctor. It wasn't until then that she realized that she really wasn't that great at science. After that, she thought she wanted to be an English teacher. After writing the SATs, she didn't want to write another subjective essay ever again. In first year, she took a psych course and being a cop eventually became obvious.

**Ten: **Within the first month of working with Jane, Lisbon thought that he was many things. Tactless, arrogant, devious, and childish. She would even say that he could be occasionally cruel. The fifth week after he joined her unit, they got a call to house with a face on the wall.

That was the day that she made sure she would never forget what he went through.

**Eleven:** She actually declared her minor in art history. Irrelevant to anything, she knew, but she had the credits. Even so, when she watches Jane throw the painting that he had stolen from the Russian mobster…It makes her cringe, just a little.

**Twelve:** It only happens one time. Just the once. It was after she had dropped Jane off at his apartment, early on in their partnership. Just because he could see again didn't mean he should be driving right away.

He had been so close to her the whole time. Holding onto her for dear life. He had been pathetic, of course. But somehow charming about it at the same time.

She's sitting on her couch with an empty glass of wine on the coffee table. She thinks about how he had wanted to know _what it feels like when you smile, Lisbon. Please?_

Her hand travels under her shirt on its own accord. Back and forth and forth and back.

It's hard and fast and she can't help but thinking that if it were his hand, it would be a little bit better. But they work together…they're friends.

It doesn't happen again.

**Thirteen:** Her friends in college used to watch that TV show about the vampires, with the blonde girl. They all had a crush on that Angel guy. At least, she thinks that's his name. She never really followed it and sometimes they called him something else. But she always kind of had a crush on the teacher…the british one. He was British, for starters. And he was also sort of ruggedly handsome and learned.

Of course she never told them that.

**Fourteen:** After Jane met Tommy, he sometimes took to calling her Reese, just to make her mad. Although, it was always when they were alone, so she found that eventually, she didn't really care anymore.

**Fifteen:** She's never been to Canada, or Europe, or Asia. She knows that Canada isn't a separate continent, but it has it's own novelty to it.

She wonders if Jane has ever been to any of those places. He would probably like the tropics. He seems to love the beach.

**Sixteen:** He's drunk one night, which is a rarity in and of itself. But Rigsby calls her at 11:30 to explain that he offered to share a cab with Jane, but that he claimed he wasn't ready to leave yet.

_"I mean, I'm pretty wasted boss, but I don't know, he never drinks."_

_She's in her yoga pants and a sweatshirt when she sits beside him at the bar. _

_"To what do I owe the pleasure, dear Lisbon?"_

_"I was in the neighbourhood."_

_"Liar. You were asleep."_

_She waves to the bar tender, asks for a cup of Earl Grey, if they have any, please. _

_"Is that going to be for you, or for me? Because I have to say, it wasn't necessarily hitting the spot for me tonight."_

_She shrugs and mumbles a "Maybe we can share it."_

_After he backs another double of scotch, she's finally able to convince him to call it a night. He leans on her all the way to her car, and she has to buckle him in because _Woman, why do they make these things so annoying?

_"Where do you want me to take you tonight?" She asks, because Jane well… His living patterns are erratic, so to say._

_"Please don't take me home, Lisbon," he says, eyes closed._

_"You wanna take the guest bed at my place, then?"_

_He nods, and she drives them home._

_When they're walking in the door, he smiles at her. "I'm happy that you didn't hesitate. You must really trust me not to lay the moves on you."_

_She snorts, rolls her eyes. Sits him down once they get inside the front door and helps him get his shoes off. "I'm serious, Lisbon. It's rare that a man and a woman can come home from a bar and-"_

_"Okay, Jane, I get it. But we don't want to talk about this now, do we."_

_He nods and adds, "You're right. But when it does happen, and we actually share a bed, you know I won't let it be because of something like this, right?" He's waving his arms around his face._

After that, she sort of knew that them sleeping together was just one of those things that was bound to happen. When the time was right.

**Seventeen:** She's always wanted a dog. She's never had one. She thinks she would like a big one. Maybe a lab, or a German Shepard. She hasn't actually thought about what kind of dog she wants.

So when the rules for her town-house development change, she was really considering it. She hadn't told anyone about it, but one day when Jane came into work, he was holding this big brown box.

He set it on her couch, looked at her expectantly. "Well, aren't you going to come see what it is?"

She cautiously rounded her desk, and flipped the top of the box open.

There was a chocolate Retriever puppy sleeping in the corner with a thin pink collar around its neck.

"What! Jane why did…" And as her surprise wore off, she looked at him. "How did you know?"

"You're an open book, dear," he said, a large smile spreading across his face.

**Eighteen:** Lisbon and Jane go to question a victim's husband one afternoon, and the guy just freaks. Pulls out a gun after they were settling around the island in the man's kitchen. Jane's hands are in the air within a split second, and her gun is out just as fast.

When she first met Jane, he always said she had the quickest draw in the West.

Jane hates guns.

And when the bullet hits him, she imagines that he must hate them even more now. He's down fast, and the suspect is out the door not long after. Lisbon is over him in the time it takes him to blink.

"Lisbon, go get him, I'm fine," he groans. For someone who is always a baby about everything, he's always willing to let himself suffer for others.

When the ambulance gets to the scene, and Lisbon can finally hand the suspect over to someone else, she heads towards Jane. He's sitting on the gurney, arguing with the EMTs.

"Lisbon!" He shouts to her. "Tell them it went clean through. That they can just give me some drugs and it'll be fine."

"I'm not a doctor, Jane. Let them do their jobs." She turns to the young man who is trying to get Jane to lie down. "Take him to the hospital, I'll be there right after you." Jane starts to argue, and she just looks at him. He shuts up.

That night, she learns that the only thing that can really get Jane talking (_and talking and talking and talking_) is oxicodone.

**Nineteen**: One Tuesday, she snaps at Rigsby twice before ten o'clock. She proceeds to lock herself in her office until 5, and slips out of the building while everyone is listening to Jane tell a story in the break room. He meets her eye as she leaves, but doesn't show any other signs of having seen her.

She's home for twenty minutes before Jane knocks at the door.

He smiles at her, and she picks at a piece of lint on her yoga pants. "What do you want, Jane?"

His smile widens. "I've got two different pints of Ben and Jerry's, some movies, a bottle of chardonnay, some other groceries. You going to let me in, or what?"

She sits on her couch, pulling her throw blanket back over her. He brings her a glass of wine, two ibuprofens, then prompt returns into the kitchen. When he comes back, he has two spoons and a pint of mint chocolate chip and a pint of cookie dough. "I've got Casseblanca and Breakfast at Tiffany's, which one first?"

She points to Casseblanca, and he smiles. "Don't look so proud of yourself, Jane."

"You know, for someone who prides themselves in being stoic, you're not very good at hiding your PMS symptoms."

She doesn't even blush at the comment, which is a feat for her. But she did grow up with three brothers, so Jane isn't much of a match for them.

**Twenty: **Her and all three of her brother's have matching tattoos. In different spots, yes, but they're all the same. Hers is on the side of her ribs. A smart spot, really. No one ever sees it. Probably don't know it's there. Why would Saint Teresa Lisbon have a tattoo of a wish bone on the side of her ribs? It's so…unlike her.

The first time anyone from work sees it is when Grace has her trying on a bunch of absolutely gaudy bridesmaids dresses. She says she likes it, but she would never get one herself. Lisbon knows it's a lie.

When Jane finally sees it, his eyes widen. But he smiles, and gently places his fingers over it. "Did it hurt?" He asks. When Lisbon nods, her lip between her teeth, he simply kisses it, and moves on.

Takes it in stride, knowing that she is much more than a sum of her parts. Acknowledges that he didn't know everything about her before, and that after this, he still won't.

** A/N: If y'all want to leave a review about this one, that would be appreciated. If you seem to like it, I'll probably do a follow up about Jane. Let me know! **


	2. Patrick Jane

**Wow, I'm just…floored by the response there was to this. Thank you to everyone who left a review, added this to their alerts and/or favourites and all that jazz. I really appreciate all the positive feedback,and I'm very glad that you actually enjoyed it. There was a request for a Rigsby chapter, which makes me feel like maybe readers would want one for every character. I just don't know how well I would be able to write the rest of the gang…but if there's more requests, I'll definitely try. **

**Everyone wanted one about Jane, including myself. So without further adieu…**

Twenty Facts about Patrick Jane

**One**: It's not that he's necessarily comfortable in a three piece suit-well, he is, just not physically. They aren't the most comfortable things to wear, after all. But emotionally-socially, it allows him to look the epitome of professionalism. Tailored suits that really are very complimentary.

You can tell a lot by what a person wears, he knows. Someone either thrives through what they wear, so as to make a grand exclamation without saying anything at all…Or someone hides behind layers of fabric that do nothing but protect them from everything.

**Two:** The first time that he met Agent Teresa Lisbon, he tried to be nice to her. It wasn't necessarily a difficult thing to do; she was very kind hearted, he could tell. But she kept giving him this look. He doesn't even know how to describe it. But it was like she knew that he was full of shit, the whole time.

Like he was lying about something. He hadn't felt that way in quite some time, and while it terrified him, it kind of made him feel…relieved, almost.

It was nice to know that someone knew that he had replaced his life as a sham with a sham of a life.

**Three:** He loves baseball. He likes to think that if he had a normal life experience, he would have played. He would have been very good at it. It was a smart game, where decisions needed to be made in split seconds.

He had been trying to convince Angela to let him sign Charlotte up for a softball team not long before she died. Angela thought it was dangerous, that aggressive sports would make their daughter aggressive. _Can't we just teach her to play the piano and sign her up for ballet? Let her live like a princess, Patrick? _

_Baseball isn't even aggressive, Ange. Maybe football. But softball? Really?_

It was just one of the countless things they disagreed on.

**Four:** After the whole incident at the hotel with Tommy, Jane had talked to the man over a cup of tea. He likes Tommy; he is obviously related to Teresa Lisbon. But he's honest in a different way. Isn't afraid to ask questions that the eldest Lisbon would never dare utter.

So when Tommy says "You know, Teresa mentioned what it was like, seeing you after what that Red guy did to your family," Jane is shocked, but not because the younger Lisbon brought up his family.

Tommy continues to explain that she never went inside, but has relayed that Jane sat out on the curb once the crime scene guys had started to clear everything. "She brought you a cup of coffee, but didn't say much else about it. Just that it broke her heart, and made her want to be lead on the case more than she ever wanted anything."

Jane doesn't even remember seeing her, and he doesn't forget things like that. But neither does Lisbon. He remembers drinking the coffee though.

He likes Tommy.

**Five:** Charlotte loved to finger paint. Jane remembers countless occasions when he had to wash paint out of her hair. Once, she even painted a strip of blue paint into her hair.

Jane had laughed, and let his little daughter paint blue into his hair too. It was his day off, it didn't matter.

**Six: **Their wedding had been small, on the beach. The sun was high, and the sky was clear. It wasn't all that long ago, but at the same time it felt like a lifetime has passed.

He can't even really picture his wife's face anymore. He has memories of her, but her face is just…sort of a blur. He can see her, can place her. But he doesn't know the details of her anymore.

**Seven: **The first time Patrick sees the ocean, he's 21 years old. He has travelled across the U.S., but he had never really made it to a coast. He's read about it, seen photos, heard the stories.

But actually seeing it with his own eyes…being able to hear the sound of the waves and smell the salt and just feel it…

There's a sense of hope that overwhelms him, and he had never been happier.

**Eight:** One year, the team somehow convinces Lisbon to throw an Independence Day barbecue. Well, Van Pelt was saying she didn't have plans, and that somehow turned into Jane basically forcing her to host it.

Her town house has a back yard and a patio, which she chose instead of having a garage._ And, Lisbon, it's not like I can host it._

So she hosts it, but he has to help, of course. "This is all your fault, least you can do is contribute."

He buys steaks and Maui ribs and chicken wings and makes Beer Can Chicken because _Lisbon, it's delicious and I'm a master at it._

Her brother James stops by for a bit, which he finds very amusing. Apparently he's been in town for over a week.

Lisbon is talking to her younger brother while she's mixing a potato salad when Jane is looking for the barbecue tongs. He reaches past her with a hand on her hips to grab them from their spot on the counter. He snatches a piece of potato with fast fingers, and she hits him.

James smiles, and as he leaves the kitchen Jane can hear him say "So…what's that about, Reese?"

It wasn't the first time Jane thought that maybe he was missing something crucial. But it was the first time he learnt that Lisbon makes a wicked potato salad.

**Nine:** Jane always liked classic literature, but it isn't until he reads Hamlet for the first time at 26 years old that he realizes that he wasn't the only young man with a lot of issues that were mostly beyond his control.

**Ten: **On his ninth birthday, he's somewhere in Texas. They're traveling with a group that has an act with an elephant. An actually elephant.

Patrick has seen a lot, and he's almost ten, you know. That has two digits. But nine is a more interesting number because it has a square root and is a square root and it's pretty close to the number seven, but the number seven is prime number. But he's never seen an elephant.

His dad lets him watch that part of the show in the big tent on the night before his birthday. Patrick was very excited to see the elephant, and his dad was being really very nice to him, because it's almost his birthday, you know.

Afterwards, his dad gets really mad at him, but he doesn't really understand why…he's been good all day and tomorrow is his birthday.

The next morning, before the show, he's sitting near the elephant cage, talking to the elephant. Misses Damien from the donut stand comes to sit with him, and offers him a bag of mini donuts.

"Happy birthday, Patty! Nine sure is old, huh?"

"Nine is a perfect square. Did you know that, Miss? I don't feel very old today, though. Do you feel old? If I had to guess I would say that you're…Sixteen! Are you sixteen? Cause that's also a perfect square!"

She laughs, pats his head. His hair is getting quite long. "Did you know, Patty, that elephants never forget?"

He likes elephants, and decides to be just like them.

**Eleven:** He misses cooking. He used to do it all the time. Angela never really cared for it, found it to be stressful. But he always loved the satisfaction of learning a recipe, changing it, mastering it, and finally being able to just sit and enjoy it.

Like a good glass of wine, a well earned meal is always better when you've invested something into it.

**Twelve:** Every time that he had ever imagined catching Red John, it was never like _that._ He never thought that he would simply resign it all.

But in the end, it had been to easy. Years and years of thinking about it..and when the time really came, he was just so tired.

Even when he thought that Timothy Carter had been Red John, he hadn't felt better. So really, he should have known that when he caught the real Red John, that's what he would remember.

That he didn't feel any better.

When Cho and Rigsby cuff him and throw him into the back of a cruiser with a little too much force, all Jane can do is sigh. He's sitting in the passenger seat of Lisbon's SUV with the door open, and just closes his eyes.

Finally, Lisbon comes over, puts a hand on his knee. "Jane," she whispers, then more loudly but still as soft, "Patrick?"

He opens his eyes slowly, meets her eyes.

"I'm sorry that…that you didn't get a chance to…y'know…"

The corners of his lips turn up. "Lisbon, dear, we both know that you don't mean that. You never wanted me to kill him."

"No, I didn't, but I wanted to you be able to feel at peace, finally rest."

He places his hand over hers on his knee. "I do feel that way, Teresa. Just, I'm really very tired now. I'd like…I'd like to go home."

**Thirteen:** He does a favour for the president of UC San Diego one May, and really saves the guy a lot of trouble. Then, the next September, Jane solves a murder on the campus in under 10 hours.

At the next commencement ceremony, they offer him an honorary doctorate in criminal psychology.

_Lisbon, it's as if I really went to school. _

**Fourteen:** Jane has allergies to cats, milk, flax seeds, most soaps, bees, and pollen. His lactose intolerance isn't serious; the most mild of forms. His cat, soap, and pollen allergies are more so irritations. But the bees and the flax seeds…they're deadly.

When Lisbon makes this god awful spaghetti sauce with tomato paste and ketchup and chilli peppers, he doesn't have the heart to fake an allergy. She would believe it, he knows. But if she tries to stab him with the damn Epi-pen around his ankle, it won't be so believable.

**Fifteen:** Jane went Trick-or-Treating for the first time when Charlotte was three years old. She was dressed as Winnie the Pooh. Although she had her winter coat on over top of the costume anyway. He dressed up as Indiana Jones, because that man was classy, and smart, and also totally bad ass. Although he simply told Angela that it was an easy costume. She would never let him live it down if he told her that he sort of…had a…_man crush_ on the archaeologist.

**Sixteen:** The fact that he's only ever slept with Angela really bothers him more than he is willing to admit. But, he's been celibate for a long time now, and somewhere along the way, it stopped being about honouring his dead wife, and started being about whenever eventually came along and both him and Lisbon were ready at the same time.

**Seventeen:** When Ron Crosswhite tells him that the last thing he ever said to his wife was a lie, Jane can't help but sympathize with the man. The fact that he's holding people hostage becomes secondary. The two of them really aren't all that different.

**Eighteen**: The only person Jane has really hated is Red John. He really didn't like Kristina Frye, but she suffered such a horrible fate, so he forgave her for everything else.

**Nineteen: **Jane really is very good at card games. There's a reason he was able to win all that money. His memory palace is quite extraordinary. He's got a memory palace for Lisbon too. He's actually exploring it when said Agent lays down a full house with Kings high, finally beating him at his own game.

**Twenty: **The day that he took off his wedding ring for good, it was sunny. For all intents and purposes, the day was beautiful. Perfect.

He didn't feel perfect…knew that was impossible. But he woke up that morning, and it looked like any other idle Tuesday. But he felt…inexplicably content. He had gone to lunch with Lisbon, had focused on her laughter throughout the meal. Let her tell stories about this guy she had a crush on in college who was into drama, of all things.

Instead of thinking about the past, he imagined a future. He rejoiced in the present.

He was alive, Lisbon was alive.

He would be all right.


End file.
